What I'm Watching December Edition: Kim's Convenience, MacGruber, Love, Death and Robots

 Kim’s Convenience (CBC, now available on Netflix)-I previously wrote that this show was mildly entertaining but two of the four main characters (the father and mother in a nuclear family) are portrayed so stereotypically it borders on offensiveness. But I was watching the show in a vacuum.

When reading about how the show has affected people, it turns out “Kim’s Convenience” was heavily championed by the Korean-American community during most of its five-season run from 2016-2021. My issue was with the parents’ broken English but apparently that’s somewhat accurate.

Upon rewatch, the show has really hooked me. Like CBC’s other offerings (that I’ve seen) “Schitt’s Creek” and “Little Mosque on the Prairie” there’s an overriding warmth and sweetness even when the show goes through the highs and lows of low-stakes sitcomdom. I often liken “Schitt’s Creek” to a funkier version of the “Andy Griffith Show” and even though we never venture far from the store, there’s a larger sense of community that’s presented here whether it’s the expanded world of Janet’s photography school, the personalities that visit Kim’s store, or the neighborhood church.

At its core, this is a second-generation family that doesn’t have an easy time expressing their affection to each other and that tension has been interesting to explore.

Maid (Netflix)-An exploration of the have nots in Americana with Margaret Qualley (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) in the lead. Qualley plays a trailer park resident in Washington State, Alex, who exists in the bureaucratically gray area between abused and ineligible for government care.

The series begins as Alex’s husband (Nick Robinson of Jurassic World) threatens them by punching the wall prompting Alex to take their toddler in the middle of the night and escape. Initially Alex doesn’t believe herself worthy of a government hand-out and the judge doesn’t treat her like a victim (at least it first).

It’s one of those situations where you want to punch the screen in agony over why the various stake holders don’t just talk to each other and acknowledge their collective responsibility to care for one in their community. Which (along with something like “Orange is the New Black” or “The Joker”) is part of the point: To make you, the viewer, more empathetic to what’s wrong with society.

This is a tricky balancing act. Making the viewer flat-out depressed over how society is letting down its own isn’t universally considered an enjoyable viewing experience. Maybe, that’s why this is a limited series? But “Maid” walks that line well. There are enough moments of hope to balance the economic bleakness of the mood and the drama is very engaging.

The Great (Hulu)-I had just made my top 12 list and now I have to struggle with kicking something off because this show is too good. It was my number one show last year and through 4 episodes, it’s hard to ignore that this show has it going on.

Is the show historically authentic? I have no clue but it’s certainly a fun world to inhabit that feels close enough to the real thing that we get a gist.

The first season presented us with a near-psychopathic emperor who simply served his basest instincts instead of ruling the country. It’s within the first episode that his subservient wife finally succeeds in taking Russia. As we know from Hamilton, “winning [the Revolutionary War] was easy, governing’s harder.” That’s the general theme of Season 2.

What’s also wonderful is how the characters are so deep, you can deep dive in their psychologies. Why is Grigor so loyal to the King? Is Marial completely taken over by revenge? How deep do Peter’s mommy issues run? There’s almost no character getting screen time that’s uninteresting.

MacGruber (Peacock)- The film approached gratuitous nudity and violence with such an over-the-topness that it reminds one of the hard-drinking college friend with no sense of shame.

Considering that the series has no boundaries over how low brow is the limit, there's no reason to worry about tarnishing the legacy of such a spectacularly stupid film by expanding it to an eight-episode series.

Still: The series never reaches the comic plateau of the film. The comic energy works best when Will Forte's lunacy is juxtaposed alongside Ryan Phillipe's sensible soldier and love interest Kristen Wiig (the film starts out with her married to a general played by Lawrence Fishburne which is quite the obstacle). One problem is it takes at least three episodes to get the tree of them together and by then there's a significant loss in momentum. Will Forte's MacGruber is notably nastier here (I'm guessing it's a way to deepen the character and give him edge) and it's a lot less fun.

Even when operating on full cylinders, it still feels like the jokes per minute count is a little lower than the film. Perhaps, it's because of the way the plot is serialized and stretched out but not in a way that adds to the humor.

Saturday Morning All-Star Hits (Netflix)-As previously noted in a separate review, this show is Zazz!

Love Death and Robots (Netflix)-An anthology series focusing on technology and futuristic concepts. It’s a lot like “Black Mirror” but the episodes are in the 10-15 minute range and that makes a clear difference over how much depth a plot motif can get in. Like “Black Mirror” there’s usually a twist but the series isn’t beholden to base the strength of the episode entirely around the twist. What makes this show stick out is the consistent quality of the animation and the way different episodes use different animation styles.

2021 was a Year of Great Auteurs and Terrible Box Office Results

To those who don’t follow the box office, it might seem like the pandemic has dealt a blow to movie theaters but the numbers have shown for quite a while that films have been in jeopardy for a few years now.

The blockbuster business model of films has geared towards blockbusters and that disincentivised films from prioritizing quality. For one, the emphasis is generally on making money opening weekend. A film might make half its money opening weekend (generally enough to break even) before audiences realize it’s not that good. It’s a curiosity that film critics even devote their time to big releases when audiences will realize a film’s a dud before it’s too late.

I often cite 2002 as the year things changed because the original Spider-Man became the first film to gross $100 million in a single weekend. Believe me, it wasn’t just me looking at a newspaper and realizing “eureka! We’re in a new era.” A lot of press was written about this milestone (which Google News hasn’t been that generous in preserving). Ironically, some of the films that topped the top ten that weekend were Changing Lanes (a thriller starring Samuel L Jackson and Ben Affleck), The Scorpion King (a Dwayne Johnson film) and The Rookie (a sentimental sports movie).

Tragically, very few films would survive in today’s market. A sports film (particularly the Kevin Costner kind) but it’s chances are slimmer, especially in today’s market.

Dwayne Johnson still makes films but they’re board game and Disney ride adaptations in the case of Jumanji and Jungle Cruise. Which brings me to the point that even tired and tested brands and genres like those mentioned above might not get financed if they’re price tag is too expensive. The only thing that sells today is what’s known as Intellectual Properties or IPs which translates to films made from a past property whether a sequel/prequel/reboot/remake of an existing film or an adaptation of a highly popular comic/TV show/broadway show/book (i.e. Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, 50 Shades of Gray). In fact, in the year 2016, only 2 films out of the top 20—La La Land and Hidden Figures—were original films.

One way around this is to hire visionaries to get an intellectual property and make it their own like Christopher Nolan, Sam Mendes, and Taiki Wahiti have done. Paul Schrader, the screenwriter of the classic film Taxi Driver, wrote and directed the brilliant film First Reformed with Ethan Hawke to the tune of $3.4 million. Director Todd Philips had much better luck when he used Taxi Driver as a heavy influence on his (marginally) comic book based film The Joker for a film that grossed roughly 100 times that amount.

This phenomenon is known as the death of the mid-range film which many people have written about:
Is the Mid-Budget Movie an Endangered Species?

This all came to a head when mega-influential director Martin Scorsese penned an essay attacking the multi-headed beast of Marvel for ruining movies.

Which Brings Us to 2021

I keep track of a list of directors I've seen 4 or more films of. Last year, of the around 45 films I saw only 2 directors that met that benchmark (Ron Howard-Hillbilly Elegy and Chris Nolan-Tenet) and very few other notable names who I just hadn't seen enough of like Lee Daniels (Billie Holiday), Charlie Kaufman (I'm Thinking of Ending Things) and Paul Greengrass (News of the World)...most films I saw were by directors who were making a film I'd seen for the first time. I think (though I could be wrong) that studio money going to trusted film makers is going down and you just have to watch a lot of indie stuff on streaming to not get typical franchise stuff. However, this year that number ballooned to 8 out of only 34 films I've seen so far*. Additionally, there are so many artistically-renowned directors that I haven't yet seen or might not see--Mike Mills, Paul Thomas Anderson, Joel (without Ethan) Coen, Chloe Zhao, Pablo Sorrentino, Pablo Lorrain, Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson, Sean Baker—that it's a remarkably rich slate. A few years ago with David Fincher and Steven Soderbergh moving to TV and aging masters like Mike Nichols, Francis Ford Coppola, and Jonathan Demme struggled mightily with the studio system.

Now whether they're streaming or in a theater, I'm not sure if we can declare movies dead just yet if visionary filmmakers are being able to get their visions met. This has been a great year for movies.

Most industry insiders treat Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film Jaws (followed by his friend George Lucas’s 1977 film Star Wars) is ground zero of blockbuster culture.

Spielberg’s near-impossible feat of remaking a classic--West Side Story—and turning it into an entirely new classic puts him in the category of auteurs behind this year’s wave of greatness.

However, like great auteurs in this day and age he also has no place in the new sad era of the blockbuster. Instead, it’s once again Spider-Man which grabbed those headlines with another record-breaking gross even in the age of the pandemic.

  

I'm off the Aaron Sorkin train again: Being the Ricardos

 

The typical Aaron Sorkin project features characters who all have IQs of 150, and possess the exact same degree of interest in holding extremely inefficient conversations that are always branching off into a minimum of three tangents per interaction. It seems like Sorkin's characters possess the listening skills of autistic Onion News reporter Michael Falk.

I assumed that with his run of "Moneyball", "Molly's Game" and "Trial of the Chicago 7" that Sorkin found a way to temper his most irritating elements.

But "Being the Ricardos", while an exciting story, is simply Sorkin writing Sorkinesque caricatures which is a pretty bad fit when the story is about show business and Sorkin attempts to give camera blocking the same gravity as a federal trial.

It's also a problem because this story should be about the Ricardos and it's hard to believe that the Ricardos sounded like Aaron Sorkin. This has led to noticeable anachronistic language (words like  gaslighting or infantilization didn't exist in 1953) and let's not get into the charges of inaccuracy on the part of Lucy and Desi's daughter.

What's even more disturbing is the way Aaron Sorkin unethically uses his platform as a writer to justify himself. In his other train wreck "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", Sorkin used the show to air out all his grievances with the religiosity of ex Kristin Chenoweth and the show that fired him. The central character of that show (and audience avatar) was portrayed as a misunderstood genius while the other writers on the show were portrayed as hacks. 

Even when portraying other people, Sorkin champions the talent over the producers or sponsors and goes so far as to justify their egos even when they're awful people. This isn't a neutral script: It comes from a writer who famously rejected other writers' assistance when he ran "The West Wing."  Writer/producer Jess Openheimer and the episode's director are both portrayed as dolts who get in the way of true talent. This version of Lucille Ball is a Stanley Kubrick nightmare. The proper response to being woken up at 2 AM by your co-star to re-run a scene is "I am calling an agent and putting a rider in my contract that if I get woken up at this time, I walk." It's the same battle lines Sorkin employed on "Studio 60" and "The Newsroom" and it's getting old. 

When this much is going wrong, the clunky dialogue gets that much clunkier. Vivian Vance trying to tell a story to Bill Frawley over and over again (about a 7-year old accused of Communism) is intended to highlight that the two have a fun bickering rapport like they do on the show. However, it comes off as someone trying to force a conversation on someone else. Desi starting the table read with "I am the President of Desilu Productions and I say every word for the next 30 minutes is something in the script" comes off as over exposition. Bill Frawley kidding "it took three of you to write this" when he sees three names on the script (something standard at the time) is just plain lazy on the research end. And this is just one scene. 

The film has its moments and it's about an exciting topic. The acting is extraordinary. But Aaron Sorkin does not get out of his own way nearly enough and it's unfortunate so many reviewers are giving him a pass. Perhaps, it's that there are two or three films that discuss racism and sexism in the film and reviewers are calling it socially important. 

Where I Got My Latest Round of Stories

The single most frequent question I get is “How do you get your stories?” My answer: Beyond the obvious means (developing beats and subscribing to wires), it’s simply a natural reflex developed over time of being more observant and conscious of what could be news when you come across an idea. That’s not to say that when you start thinking like a journalist, all of a sudden a meteor will land on your front lawn, BUT a journalist’s first thought when a meteor lands on their front lawn will be “How can I best turn this into a story?”

Recent story pitches of mine since returning from New Orleans in early November:

1. Coast Guard Vet Seeks to Write Screenplay to Highlight Branch of Military Service-

How I got the story: I participate in a discussion group once a month. In November, the theme was veterans on film and a couple veterans were invited to participate. One man was a Coast Guard veteran who had previously entered the Mike Nichols screenplay competition and wanted to write a film about the Coast Guard because so few military films have focused on that branch of service and so few people know what the Coast Guard does. Why I pursued it:  I felt this was a valid point and that this person’s quest could be accompanied by a historical context were certain branches of military actively cultivated their image through Hollywood. Plus, this should be good fodder to both film and military movies.

Where the Pitch Stands: I have not yet pitched it. It seems evergreen enough that it can wait. I did contact the subject and he readily gave me a really long biography

2. Afghan Translator Gains Refugee Status With Help of Virginia-Based Author; Arrives to McLean: How I got the story: I do work at the Archives in College Park Maryland and one day a man offered to give me a ride back when we both got out late and I missed the shuttle. On the way, he told me he had to stop and pick up a friend in Alexandria who got stopped by the police for attempting to bike on a highway. It turned out this man was an Afghan refugee who had been in the country just a couple weeks (not counting his initial point of entry at an army base) and was trying to file for his social security card. What’s more the man giving me a ride was an author who had used the translator when in Afghanistan and agreed to be his sponsor.

Why I pursued it: I thought it was an incredible and moving story. I also have been learning more about the region and the situation every second I talk to these two.

Where the Pitch Stands: Greenlit for a handsome price and I am working on it now. It will appear in Northern Virginia Magazine in February I believe.

3. Counselor to the Stars:

How I Found It: Like the situation above, this story came about when I was getting a ride from a couple. Getting out is good and in two cases, it’s been a blessing in disguise not to have a car. The wife in this couple is a counselor to a distance learning school that has been doing this style since before the pandemic. She has been a guidance counselor to Broadway stars, tennis prodigies, and Olympic hopefuls.

Why I pursued it: I write for an outlet that would be a good fit for it and I think it’s a really interesting take.

Where the Pitch Stands: At first, I had the problem of losing the subject’s contact information but I eventually tracked that down. She’s cleared it with her school. Now the problem is that an editor seemed on board with this one but I haven’t heard from him lately. Wish me luck in getting back in touch with him.

4. Virginian actress Tori Pence is Mormon famous:

How I got the story: I am a fan of a TV show called Studio C which is a family-friendly sketch comedy show run by a network that’s affiliated with BYU. The show caters primarily to Mormons and Utahans but because it’s on YouTube, it occasionally gets fans from outside those communities. One of the actors (one of the more talented ones in my opinion) said in an instagram chat that she was from Virginia which prompted me to pitch a place-based story to some Virginia contacts. Why I pursued it: I think it’s fascinating to write about a group of sketch actors with a very specific niche who are famous in certain communities but might not be known by the rest of the country (yet). I also am a fan of this particular actress.   Where the Pitch Stands: I’ve pitched this to one newspaper I haven’t heard from and I’m easing into this one slowly. The network’s  PR person said he’d contact Tori on my behalf so we’re still waiting on this

5. Abundance of Jewish A Capella Groups at the University of Maryland

How I got the story: Looking for Channukah options, I went to my synagogue’s annual holiday party and the entertainment was an a capella group from UMD. At the end of the concert, I talked to them and they said they were one of three Jewish a capella groups.

Why I pursued it: I just think three groups on one campus is interesting and it felt like it was worth a shot to pitch it. I also enjoy a capella music and have written about it before

Where the pitch stands: I have a feeling there’s only one publication that this would be a good fit for and I pitched it there. So far the editor hasn’t committed yet but I’m not getting my hopes up.

6.  Local Piano YouTube Star

How I Found It: Basically, there was a jazz song I wanted to see covered on piano. In my search, I fell in love with the style of a certain player with a large YouTube following. I felt like I hit the lottery when I saw in the video description that she requests fan mail be sent to her apartment in Alexandria, VA. Why I pursued it: I love the piano and think the sudden fame and the different metrics by which you measure life success as a YouTube star must be doubly interesting as a classically trained pianist. Where the pitch stands: I got it green lit but sadly have not back from the piano player herself yet. Darn celebrities

7. Something Something West Side Story

How I Found It: I watched the film. Duh

Why I Pursued it: I revel in writing center-left analysis of pop culture and there were some things that struck me strongly. Because the police are much tamer in comparison to the 1961 film and don’t figure in to the conflict as much, I was originally thinking that West Side Story could be called a Blue Lives Matter. Then I started thinking that the heavy reception of this is a celebration against cancellation despite the fact that it’s been praised by so many liberal groups. Where the Pitch Stands:  I don’t have too much confidence that the couple outlets I am aiming for will pick it up. I wrote a little for a conservative magazine before and they just changed their editors so I think if I bombard them with the best of my previously pitched material and some topical stuff like this, they might at least respond with what they’re looking for and I can better get in the door. I also think if I write something good, I can just circulate it around everywhere

Short Reviews of 2021 films

Eyes of Tammy Faye-Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, Cherry Jones, Vincent D’Onofrio, Gabriel Olds-The true story of a televangelist’s (Andrew Garfield) wife (Jessica Chastain) who wasn’t as bad as you might expect. With the exception of a few unnecessary flashbacks, the film successfully strays away from the sort of beat-by-beat biopic formula. It’s a meaty story.

Ride the Eagle-Jake Johnson, Susan Sarandon, D’arcy Carden, JK Simmons-Most famous for being shot during quarantine with the actors largely alone, this is more than just an experiment in monologue-based storytelling. It’s a touching (a word that critics try to stay away from, but there I said it!) story of a guy crossing off his late mom’s bucket list to get his inheritance of her house.  There’s a very sweet and natural-sounding courtship between two old exes as well as a fine exploration of an adult coming to grips with mommy issues.

Tomorrow War-Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahinski, Sam Richardson, Edwin Hodges, JK Simmons, Betty Gilpin-Sci-fi films about how we’re very, very doomed as a species can understandably be a bit more depressing than the genre was meant for. Personally, I like sci-fi when it’s thought-provoking and there’s a little of that, but it’s a lot more blood and guts. Also, the shrieking sounds of these alien abominations as they are being slaughtered is not a feast for the ears.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain-Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy, Andrea Risborough, Tobey Jones, Olivia Colman, Adeel Akhtar-Maybe I’m burned out of British period pieces but this film is unremarkable in its premise, and, at times, laughably off in that execution.

The film is told with the whimsy of a Tim Burton film (Olivia Colman does narrative duties) but it’s jarringly dark. Also, worth noting that the protagonist isn’t really that much of an oddity. Played by Benedict Cumberbatch, Louis Wain (whom I presume became famous on account of they based a movie on him) possesses a few of the aesperger-like traits of Cumberbatch’s “The Imitation Game” character (Alan Turing) and is romantically inexperienced, but that’s about it. When he’s told by his employer (Tobey Jones) very often that he’s eccentric, it’s just plain bizarre.

There’s a nice love story with Claire Foy and the economic reality of a man who has to support five sisters but the movie only touches on those things rather than makes them the focus of the story.  In the second half, the film turns into a psychological tale of a man gone mad and manages to salvage an ending that thematically ties things together but there’s a lot of fatigue to get to that point.

The French Dispatch-Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Adrian Brody, Lois Smith, Lea Seydoux, Timothee Chalemet, Frances McDormand, Lyna Khoudri, Jeffrey Wright, Liev Schreiber,  Mattheiu Almaric, Lyna Khoudri -The French Dispatch shows that even great directors can have an off day. Anderson’s trademarks of ornate mise-en-scenes and people succeeding in finding belonging is present,  but his penchant for saturating the cast reaches its tipping point here. The film’s main story is about a beloved literary editor (Bill Murray) passing away but we hardly get to see that story because the film diverges into three vignettes that takes away from the film's main emotional arc. The end result is a feeling of cold remoteness that's a thin line between what Anderson delivers on and what he can be seen as at his most indulgent.

The Courier-Benedict Cumberbatch, Merab Ninidze, Jessie Buckley, Rachel Brosnahan, Angus T Jones-Contrary to what Jason Bourne and James Bond would have you think, spies aren't one-man armies or charismatic seducers. They're people in the shadows like Greville Wynne who go about the same routine over and over in hopes of gleaming a trace of information that could make a difference in history. His story here is told at what I like to call the speed of history. While that's a different type of film than a spy thriller, the stakes are no less enormous and the intellectual and enormous weight of the costs are no less effectively portrayed.

Last Night in Soho-Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor Joy, Dianna Rigg, Max Smith, Ruth Tushingham-Thomasin McKenzie stars as a fashion student, Lola, with a bizarrely ambiguous disorder: She sees ghosts but only through the mirror and only one at a time and --- never mind, let's not think too hard about it. Things start to escalate for Lola when she moves into a creepy apartment with a strict landlord played a swan song performance by Diana Rigg) and starts to get intense visions of a 60s dancer (Anya Taylor Joy) that become sensually delighting, unnerving, and emotionally exhausting all at once. She becomes completely consumed while we, as an audience, are increasingly left to pick up disparate parts in what amounts to a combination thriller-mystery with sleek period visuals and masterful editing (something Edgar Wright's films rarely lack). For someone who has made a name for himself in hybrid comedy (comedy apocalypse, comedy horror, etc.), Edgar Wright deserves a lot of credit for his ambitions in making a film that's not comedic at all, though the film goes a bit heavy on tired horror tropes.

Kyle Mooney's Saturday Morning All-Star Hits (Netflix) Review

It's hard to find a better word (or rather compound word) to describe this then Kyle Mooneyesque. The SNL comedian has cultivated a very specific brand of nostalgia-based parody from the late 80s and early 90s and it's extra meaningful if you grew up on TGIF or Fox's Saturday morning block.

Each of the eight episodes follows a series of cartoons. There's one following the heroics of two professional athletes who live in the shadows of their more famous brother (Robin Lopez or Jarron Collins must finally be seen!) and are unusually violent that has shades of the 90s X-Men cartoons. Another has a dinosaur (based on Denver the Last Dinosaur) who gets suicidally depressed in the first episode.

The show is framed by two twin brothers cosplaying as Saved by the Bell extras who talk like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and even make up their own words like "zwaaz" (likely, a play on the turtles adding "cowabunga" in the vernacular). There are also public service announcements that highlight, well-- the ineffectiveness of 90s public service announcements (think DARE) if nothing else, previews of live action films (extremely softball plugs) and promotional tie-ins that are hilariously obvious but not too different from today's corporate synergy.

Then the show begins to get more serialized in a way that Kyle Mooney's SNL sketches never have the capacity to be. This is why this show exists.

One of the less overtly funny shows (based off Thundercats and He-Man) starts to get a better gimmick when one of the twins, Skip, gets a one-line cameo. Similar to how Jaleel White famously wreaked havoc on the rest of the cast's air time on "Modern Family" through accidentally hitting upon the show's catch phrase "Did I Do That?", Skip instantly gets catapulted as the face of the show and spearheads a live action film. Meanwhile, his brother gets left in the dust. On top of that there's a casually played out murder behind the scenes.

It would be all very dark and complex if it wasn't filtered through the "cowabunga" air-guitar-shredding cheeriness of 90s TV.

As opposed to broad and aggressive (Mike Meyers), random (Lonely Island), or exploring the "what if"s and meandering on tangents (Seth MacFarland), Kyle Mooney's style of parody is an intricately-constructed recreation with glaring holes. It's the juxtaposition that's the joke and while many reviews say he might not be for everyone, there's a lot to appreciate.